HC wants Sanskriti’s admission details

Delhi High Court has asked Sanskriti School for details of the criteria adopted to categorise wards of various classes of civil servants for granting nursery admissions and the school’s source of funding, reports Harish V Nair.

Delhi High Court has asked Sanskriti School for details of the criteria adopted to categorise wards of various classes of civil servants for granting nursery admissions and the school’s source of funding.

As reported by Hindustan Times on February 10, the Chanakyapuri school, which mainly caters to the children of senior bureaucrats, is facing complaints of discriminating among wards of Group-A government officials.

Three railways Group-A officers had moved court after their wards were unable to get admission due to “arbitrary rules adopted by the school” denying them 20 extra points.

“Let relevant records justifying sub-categorisation or classification of the wards of various classes of civil servants be produced… the affidavit shall specifically point to source of funding by Founder Services of the School; whether such funding was on the basis of private donation by individuals or societies or through grant by any government agency or department,” said Justice S. Ravindra Bhat.

The school’s counsel has been asked to provide details by March 13, the next date of hearing. Ambar Qamaruddin, the petitioners’ counsel, told the court that the school had, for the admission process of the 2009-10 session, awarded 20 extra points to children of Indian Railway Traffic Services (IRTS) officials only.

As per rule 6(a) of Sanskriti’s school-specific criteria for admissions this year, only children of IAS, IPS, IFS (Group-A), IRTS and Customs were awarded these 20 extra points.

The ignored groups are Indian Railway Services of Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Signal Engineers and those in Personnel Service and the Accounts Section.

Justifying the move, Sanskriti principal Abha Sahgal had told HT: “Of the seven groups, only the IRTS is a founder service, which means only they have contributed in setting up Sanskriti. That is why we restrict extra 20 points to wards of those officials and not of other Group-A officials of the Indian Railways.”

Qamaruddin accused Sanskriti of ignoring a letter from the Ministry of Railways and the Railway Board chairman that had asked the school to treat all Group-A services of the Railways at par.